The present invention is related to computer software and, in particular, to apparatus and method for automatically updating file versions for files which are shared by several computer users and which are located in each user individual file directory stored in his/her computer.
A complex software project consisting of thousands of lines of code is typically designed to be modular. That is, the project is divided into multiple portions independent of each other. Not only does it become easier to manage and debug the entire program code, but this also allows several programmers (team members) to work simultaneously by assigning each portion to an individual programmer. At the completion of all individual programming efforts, these portions are then assembled into a main program. The main program invokes each individually prepared source code module (by making subroutine or module calls, for example) to execute the entire project source code.
Each team member's code portion, however, may not be completely independent of the remaining code. That is, common data may need to be shared between different modules. Alternatively, one programmer may use a particular source code which can be fully re-used (without any modifications) by another programmer. It would be wasteful to duplicate efforts of several programmers if data sharing is not supported by the system.
Currently, each team member is responsible for remembering which source files he/she changed and sending the most current (updated) file versions to other team members if they need the files. Often, a team member forgets to send the most current file version, creating a problem that is difficult to detect and fix.
In addition, two team members may want to modify the same source file. When this happens, the team members must compare the differences in the two versions of the same file and incorporate the changes individually made by the two members into one common file. This new common file is then distributed to all of the team members. This is time consuming and prone to human error during the creation of the common file. Alternatively, only one team member may be allowed to work on the file version (that is, the file is "locked" by the user), while changes to the file by the other team members are not saved. This results in one or more programmers being idle for indeterminate amounts of time waiting for the file modifications to be completed, such that the file becomes available ("unlocked") to other team members.